Jeff Ament Quotes

I'm not going to say no to playing a show in Missoula.

I'm a big fan of power trios where there's only three instruments.

This isn't a mass-produced ... instrument. Mike Lull Custom Guitars makes each bass right here in the NW. Over 20 years of collaborating, designing, and building basses has gone into my model.

I feel like in a lot of ways I can relate to the fans, just being a fan of music myself.

It's hard for us not to be involved with things. When you have so much information and you see so much need, there's too much going on for us not to get involved.

With Pearl Jam, everybody is so good at what they do, it's hard to get up the courage to say, Can I sing this part, or, I want to play guitar. I feel like I have more courage to do that.

Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn't mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, 'Listen to the Ramones.'

I get lost in my right brain, especially in creative things.

Everybody got away from what Pearl Jam are supposed to be.

I just have a serious problem with business for business' sake: this bottom-dollar mentality. I have a serious problem with evil.

When I moved to Seattle, I was hanging out with kids who had done drugs, had sex a million times. I look at them now and realize their childhood was taken away.

I'm healthy enough to still skate, so I gotta go because growing up I didn't have - I mean, I grew up in Montana so ... there was kind of a little half-pipe in my yard, and that was the extent of the skate terrain in Montana. So I've got to go out and make up for lost time.

I didn't write this song. Someone was talking in a room. I just wrote down everything they said.

I had a portable 8-track player under all my ramps, cranking one of my four 8-tracks - Cars/'Candy-O,' Ramones/'Road To Ruin,' Cheap Trick/'Heaven Tonight' and the first Devo record. I don't remember skating without music.

It's great that people are basically spending their two weeks of vacation to come out and be with us in some weird part of the world. And I think we owe it to them to take 'em to some cool places.

Make movies. Don't make videos. Videos are evil.

We went to Big Sur about three years ago and hung out at the Esalen Institute.

That's probably half the reason I wanted to be in a band - I wanted to see the world.

Punk rock and skateboarding took the 'school' out of living your life, and I related to learning as I went, doing a lot of different things that I liked, when I liked. Consequently, I'm mediocre at all of the above, but still stoked on being a lifetime student of music, skating, painting, writing, etc.

Everything Ticketmaster stands for is what we're fighting against. They're just a small cog in a machine where the artist is at the bottom.

Unless you're a vegan freak of nature like Tony Gonzalez, I don't think you can play sports much past your early 30s.

I've seen kids turn their lives around. It's usually a kid who's outside of the team-sport world, or maybe has a darker personality or doesn't fit in. Skateboarding ends up being something they latch onto. It sounds hokey, but finding a focus on something - whether it's skateboard or playing your guitar - can be life changing.

You go to a show and you know the crowd is there because they like the music, not because everybody else was going. That's a good feeling. You look out there and you know, these are our people.

I certainly didn't want to be in a punk rock band, because I had already been in a punk rock band. I wanted to be in a band that could do anything - like Led Zeppelin.

I love sad. Sadness makes you feel more than anything.

I've been interested in Eastern religions since I went to college because I was trying to figure out where I stood with Catholicism.

Every few years I'll party way too much to remind myself what an idiot I am.